1. Lesson 10 The Sad Young Man Horton and Edwards

2. Teaching aim & procedures  Teaching aim:  Learn to appreciate and try to make some comment on the text  Procedures:  Description  Interpretation  Evalution

3. Teaching aim & Precedures  Learn to appreciate and try to make some comment on the text  Procedures:  Description  Interpretation  Evalution Asking & answering questions Paraphrasing & translating words, phrases & sentences Pragmastylistic analysis: the aesthetic value

4. The structure of the whole text contentsPara (s).Main idea Part 11Introduction to the subject (Life in the 1920s) Part 22-9Development of the thesis: Providing & analyzing related historical materials Part 310-11Conclusion (theme of the text)

5. What is the “lost generation”?  1. a term used to define expatriate artists and writers living in Paris after the end of World War I.  2. a term alternately used to describe:  1) the generation that came of age during World War I in the United States, World War I  2) those who died in the same war in Britain,  3) those who participated in the Cultural Revolution in ChinaCultural Revolution

6. What is the “lost generation”?  3. In America: a group of American writers who were rebelling against what America had become by the 1900’s.  1) To reject the rigid Victorian styles of the 19th Century  2) To persue a cosmopolitan ( 世界性的，各国的 ) culture which includes and values a variety of backgrounds and cultures  3) to pack up their bags and travel to Europe’s cosmopolitancultures, such as Paris and London

7. What is the “lost generation”?  4. who were involved in it? T.S.Eliot: author of "The Wasteland", very influencial in literary criticism Ezra Pound: one of the establisher of modernism in French, English and American literature Gertrude Stein who, with her brother, set up a salon in Europe visited by Picasso, Henri Matisse, Sherwood Anderson, and Ernest Hemingway and who coined the term from a french auto-mechanic “une generation perdue” Ernest Hemingway: one of the most celebrated authors of his time

8. About this text  The text is taken from Background of American Literary Thought (1967) by Horton & Edwards  Key point: the literary background of America in 1920s (politically, economically, culturally)

9. The political background  The First World War  Question:How did WWI affect the younger generation? (Paras. 5-6)  Whipping their naivette;  making them cynical;  Unable to fit into the post war society;  Rebelling & overthrowing the genteel standards of behavior.

10. The economic background  The booming of American industry after WWI and the great depression in 1930s The gigantic, roaring factories;  The inpersonality of the corporate;  The largescale aggressiveness  made America no longer isolated either in politics or in tradition and reach an international stature. (paras.2 3)  The great depression in 1930s(para. 6)

11. The cultural background  It became increasingly difficult for young people to accept standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium (environment) in which they were expected to battle for success (that is the traditional genteel Victorian morality) (paras. 3 6)

12. Why was the revolt logical and inevitable?  The conditions in the age;  1. the rebellion affected the entire western world;  2. American people realized that their country was no longer isolated in either politics or tradition and that they could no longer take refuge in isolationism.

13. How do they manifest their rejection?  Living an untraditional living (para. 1)  Visiting speakeasies;  denouncing Puritan morality;  Making fashionable experimentations in amour; wild spending on money (para.4)  Going to naughty, jazzy parties;  Being “flask-toting” sheik, “flapper’, or the “drug- store boy”

14. In what ways did Greenwich Village set the pattern?  Living a Bohemian and eccentric life;  Defying the law;  Flouting all social conventions;  Attacking the war, Babbittry, and “puritanical” gentility  They are imitated by others, setting the pattern (paras.7-8)

15. What is the “pattern of eascape”?  The writer listed all activities of these young people which help them to escape their responsibilities.  Many young people tried to imitate and go in for them. Thus a pattern (Para. 4)

16. What new philosophy do they preach?  being more sensitive to art & culture;  Less avid for material gain;  Less susceptible to standardization

17. What do they reject and advocate?  They reject the war but advocate “manhood”  They reject the materialism  They reject the traditional Victorian value  They pursue spiritual value and the cosmopolitan cultures

18. What do they reject and advocate?  The theme of the literary works in that age such as “The Sun Also Rises”, “A Farewell to Arms ”

19. Were the lost generation really lost?  They were “lost” because they were troubled, worried, and had emigrated to Europe  They were NOT lost for they finally returned to America, producing a lot of stimulating literary works.

20. Interpretation of the text  Para. 1  1. The slightest mention … the middle-aged:  At the very mention of this post- war period, middle-aged people begin to think about it longingly.  2. nostalgic; 3. denunciation  4. vagaries

21. Interpretation of the text  Para. 2  People are unwilling to admit that our country has developed to such a degree that we must play an important role in international affairs.

22. Interpretation of the text PPara. 3 11. The rejection of Victorian gentility … inevitable: IIn any case, an American could not avoid casting aside its middle-class respectability and affected refinement. 22. booming; 33. aggressiveness

23.  Para.3  4. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in …the Victorian structure:  The war only helped to speed up the breakdown of the Victorian social structure.  5. obsolescent: out of date

24. Interpretation of the text  Para.4  1. It was tempted …sophistication.  In America at least, the young people were strongly inclined to shirk their responsibilities. They pretended to be worldly wise, drinking and behaving naughtily.  2. transitory pleasure  3. momentary novelties

25. Interpretation of the text  Para. 4  4. Prohibition afforded … illicit:  The young people found greater pleasure in their drinking because Prohibition, by making drinking unlawful added a sense of adventure.

26. Interpretation of the text  Para. 5  1. Our young men began to enlist under foreign flags:  Our young men joined the armies of foreign countries to fight in the war.  2. They wanted… turned belly up:  The young people wanted to take part in the glorious adventure before the whole war ended.

27. Interpretation of the text  Para. 6  1. They had outgrown towns & families:  These young people could no longer adapt themselves to lives in their home towns or their families.  2. …the returning veteran…do-goodism of Prohibition:  The returning veteran also had to face Prohibition which the lawmakers hypocritically assumed would do good to the people.

28. Interpretation of the text  Para. 6  3. Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to “give”:  (Under all this force and pressure) something in the youth of America, who were already very tense, had to break down.

29. Interpretation of the text  Para. 7  1. It was only… artistic centre:  It was only natural that hopeful young writers whose mind and writings were filled with violent anger against war. Babbity, and “Puritanical”gentility, should come in great numbers to live in Greenwich Village, the traditional artistic centre.

30. Interpretation of the text  Para. 8  1. Each town had its “fast’ set … conventionally:  Each town was proud that it had a group of wild, reckless people, who lived unconventional lives.

31. Interpretation of the text  Para. 9  1. Meanwhile, the true intellectuals were far from flattered:  The true intellectuals did not feel pleased and honoured by the immitation of their life-style by so many people.  2. to follow suit

32. Interpretation of the text  Para. 11  The “sad young men” cursed their luck but didn’t die; escaped but voluntarily returned, flayed the Babbitts but loved their country, and in so doing gave the nation the liveliest, freshest, most stumulating writing in its literary experience.

33. Translation  一旦这些心情急迫的年青人饱尝了战争的滋 味后，那种狂欢的精神和要从事轰轰烈烈的 军事冒险的热情自然很快就烟消云散了。他 们可以永远感到光荣，因为他们战斗得很出 色，但是 1919 年从战场回来的却是一批已经 发生了很大变化的士兵。从大学参军的这一 批人更是如此。理想主义使它们很早就参了 军，因此一般来说他们经历的战斗比较多。

34. Translation  对他们来说，回到了几乎没有受到战争影响 的故乡是件痛苦的事，因为在故乡，公民们 仍天真地象庆祝独立日那样自负地高谈阔论。 两三年前他们自己也曾犯过这个毛病。更另 他们痛苦的是他们发现自己原来的工作岗位 已被留在家里的人占据了。经济在经历一场 衰退，因而不能提供新的工作。

35. Translation  而现在所有的，为数不多的就业机会，人们 又宁可要非退伍军人，而把退伍军人看作难 对付的孩子，不太想要。就是他们的家庭对 他们来说也常常是不舒服的 ; 他们再也不能适 应家乡和家庭了，并增长了一种突然的、迷 惘的厌世之感。这种思想不论他们还是他们 的亲友都不能理解。战争激起了他们的劲头、 打掉了他们的天真幼稚。

36. Translation  而现在，在全国落后的、不发达的地区，到 处都要求他们抑制他们的劲头并恢复那种自 欺欺人的、维多利亚式的天真无邪的态度。 但是他们现在觉得这种态度同那种说什么他 们的战斗已 “ 使民主在这个世界有保障 ” 的论调 一样，都是陈旧过时的。

37. Translation  再者，似乎家乡的情况还不够，回来的退伍 军人还是得面对像拿破仑那样愚蠢地蔑视一 切的凡尔赛合约，虚伪地想做善事的禁酒和 发战争财者洋洋自得的爱国主义。那些气鼓 鼓的美国青年的不满迟早要以某种方式爆发 出来。在经过一段短暂的强烈的不满之后， 终于以一种彻底推翻有教养的行为标准的形 式爆发出来。

38. Evaluation of the text  A piece of exposition,  well organized,  with the theme highlightened in the end  The aesthetic value lies in:  1. long sentence  Examples:

39. Evaluation of the text  1. No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and sensationally romanticized than the so- called Revolt of the Younger Generation.

40. Evaluation of the text  2. The slightest mention (s) of the decade brings(V) nostalgic recollections (O1) to the middle-aged and curious questions(O2) by the young: / memories(A1) of the deliciously illicit thrill of the first visit to a speak easy, of the brave denunciation of Puritan morality, and of the fashionable experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a country road; // questions(A2) about the naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting “sheik,” and the moral and stylistic vagaries of the “flapper” and the “drugstore cowboy.” (76 words altogether)  Nominalization & Parallelism

41. Evaluation of the text  2. Rhetoricl devices (results of violating co- operative principle, making the description concise, vivid, implied, indirecte)  1) They (the American young men) wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up. (irony, meiosis/ litotis, metaphor)  2) High school assembly orators proclaim that service in the Europen conflict would be of great personal value.  (meiosis/ litotis)

42. Evaluation of the text  3) As it became more and more fashionable throughtout the country for young persons to add their own little matchsticks to the conflagration of “flamming youth”, it was Greenwich Village that funned the flames.  (metaphor)  年轻人往熊熊大火中填上自己那根小火柴时， 格林 威治村则将火苗煽动得越来越旺  年轻人的行为比作往反叛的烈火上添加小火柴，把 格林威治村年轻知识分子的行为比作为火焰煽风。

43.  Thank You !